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Paris Climate Summit Inches Toward Agreement

Turn to the nation's most objective and informative
daily environmental news resource to learn how the United States and key
players around the world are responding to the environmental...

By Eric J. Lyman

Dec. 10 — The
latest—and according to summit president Laurent Fabius, the
last—draft text of 21st Conference of the Parties climate talks was
released late Dec. 10 in Paris, a slightly shorter and
significantly more focused document that key observers said cut out
too much of the most ambitious language to fight climate
change.

Unless there is a dramatic turn, the shape of the
final Paris agreement is starting to come into focus, especially on
key issues such as finance, a long-term climate goal and the
so-called “ratcheting mechanism” that aims to strengthen national
commitments over time.

But many environmental groups called it was too
weak, and business leaders said the text lacked the “policy
certainty” that investors need.

“If the final agreement ends up being a version of
this text, it just amounts to a license to pollute,” Asad Rehman,
senior campaigner for Friends of the Earth, told Bloomberg
BNA.

Fabius, the French foreign minister, convened the
main plenary for less than 15 minutes late on Dec. 10 to announce
the strategy over the rest of the summit, which is still officially
scheduled to end Dec. 11.

His staff released the latest draft text and he told
delegates to study the document and return for a second consecutive
all-night negotiating session. Afterwards, he said he would draft a
final text that he hoped the plenary would vote to adopt, based on
the late-night negotiations.

If that turns out to be the case, it means United
Nations delegates from nearly 200 nations will have solved in a few
days some of the issues that have resisted resolution in months of
negotiations. But they will have pushed the task of ramping up the
level of ambition—national commitments and long-term goals—from
countries further into the future.

Still, they would leave Paris and return home with
the world's first truly global agreement to fight and respond to
climate change.

Ratification Rules

One area that saw significant progress was on the
language for implementation, which was tightened
significantly.

In order for the Paris agreement to go into effect,
it will require ratification from at least 55 countries
representing either 55 percent or 70 percent—the two remaining
options—of the “total” or “total net” global greenhouse gas
emissions. Even at the 70 percent threshold, it would mean the
agreement could theoretically enter into force without the support
of one of the world's leading polluters such as China, the U.S. or
India.

An area where a strong contrast still remains is
loss and damage, an initiative meant to help compensate poor
countries for damages suffered from climate impacts. It is
significant that the initiative remains in a stand-alone section of
the text—something poor countries pushed hard for.

‘Choices Could Not Be More
Stark.'

Two main options for that section remain. The key
difference between them is whether it should include a mechanism
for rich countries to at some future point help pay compensation
for climate-related damage in poor countries, or whether the
industrialized nations should simply “recognize” the importance of
“averting, minimizing, and addressing loss and damage” related to
climate change.

Most developing countries and small island nations,
plus France, favor the first option; most industrialized countries,
including the U.S., favor the second.

“This draft has two vastly different approaches to
deal with loss and damage, reflecting the tough negotiations that
have occurred in the last days,” said Oxfam Australia Executive
Director Helen Szoke. “The choices could not be more stark.”

On finance, the key development since the Dec. 9
text is that this version differentiates the role of rich and poor
countries—another key goal for developing countries—although many
options for the language describing the responsibilities of
industrialized nations remain.

The text as of now says they “shall provide” either
“new,” “additional,” “adequate,” “predictable,” “accessible,”
“sustained,” or “scaled-up” “financial resources to developing
country parties with respect to both mitigation and
adaptation.”

$100 Billion ‘Floor.'

The text also sets the $100 billion annual goal to
be provided by rich countries to help developing nations adapt to
climate change in 2020 as a “floor” for subsequent years, though it
does not include specific financial targets beyond 2020.

During the last week, the long-term temperature goal
has involved two options for limiting global warming compared to
pre-industrial levels: either to a maximum of 1.5 or 2 degrees
Celsius (2.4 or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). That is still the case and
references to the more ambitious 1.5 degree goal remain peppered
throughout the text.

But the 1.5 degree option is emerging as what one
delegate called “an aspirational goal,” mentioned in every case in
connection with the less ambitious 2 degree goal, which could
emerge as the officially declared maximum level for temperature
increases and thus influence the pace of future emissions reduction
steps.

Fossil Fuel Future

Language calling for the phaseout of fossil fuels
was reduced in this version of the text to a call for “net-zero”
emissions or similar language that critics say will allow offsets
or relatively unproven technologies to be used to compensate for
continued fossil fuel use. Previous versions said fossil fuels
should be completely or nearly phased out by either 2030 or
2050.

Language on the “ratcheting mechanism” or “ambition
mechanism” was refined. It seeks to set up regular periods for
reviewing and strengthening national commitments. In previous
versions of the text it was unclear when such periods would start
and how they would work. That is now clearer, with a stocktaking
session tentatively scheduled for 2019, with countries “invited” to
resubmit their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions
(INDCs), the national pledges they sent to the UN before the Paris
talks began.

But it does not include an element that would
require such resubmissions or to say that new INDCs should be
stronger than the versions they replace.

Lacking ‘Policy Certainty.'

Environmental analysts were very critical of the
newest draft.

“What's on the table now just isn't good enough,”
said Greenpeace's Martin Kaiser. “It's an enormous problem that the
emissions targets on the table will not keep us below 1.5 degrees
of warming and this draft deal does absolutely nothing to change
that. Right now we're witnessing a display of international
impotence.”

Business leaders were similarly critical: Speakers
from the We Mean Business Coalition told reporters the negotiating
text lacks language that would give “policy certainty” to private
sector investors.

“What we want to see is policy certainty and that
policy certainty still eludes us. [However,] it is still very much
within our grasps over the course of the coming … hours,
represented by a long-term goal,” said Edward Cameron, managing
director of Business for Social Responsibility.

On long-term goals in the text, “the more certain
and clear they are, the more time frames they have, the more they
will allow all of the private sector to act to the limit of their
capabilities,” said Nicolette Bartlett, senior program manager at
the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership & Prince
of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group. “What is needed is a signal
that clearly says we are decarbonizing economies and it's going to
happen as soon as possible.”

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